100 Best Beach Reads

Roatan, Honduras - Gumbalimba Park
Originally uploaded by naden

I love NPR. I adore reading. I can't live without lists. So, NPR's list of the 100 Best Beach Books is right up my alley, especially this time of year when I'd rather be on a beach than behind a desk. Oh wait, that really doesn't have much to do with the time of year.

Happy reading!

Regina Benjamin

You've probably never heard of Regina Benjamin. Neither had I before Monday when she stood in the Rose Garden next to President Obama and accepted the nomination as Surgeon General. I love this pick. From all accounts she's an incredible doctor, a giving and caring person and actually has some experience with public health issues (as opposed to TV doctor Sanjay Gupta who had been rumored to be Obama's pick earlier this year).

Since Monday, the blogosphere has focused little on her accomplishments, choosing instead to debate the woman's weight...speculating about her BMI and writing her off as unfit (pun intended) for the position. I've struggled with how to articulate my disgust with this line of thought, until I ran across this piece by Frances Kissling at Salon. She's done a nice job of articulating things for me. This Jezebel piece also raises a good point about the inherent sexism behind this discussion.

I Blame Justin Long

My old PC died last night. It gasped, gave a quick shudder and shut its eyes forever. I've known for awhile that my poor PC had one foot in the grave, so in its last month or so, we've been carefully making succession plans. The back up hard-drive is full of files, the research on replacement computers is done. So when PC flashed it's final screen at me and faded to black, I mourned for about a minute and then put on my shoes, grabbed the dog and headed to the Apple Store.

I freely admit that it was Apple's clever marketing campaigns that drew me in. It all started with the iPhone. Who can resist all of those fantastic applications? Clearly, I can't - and now I cannot remember what life was like pre-iPhone. I mean, how did I live without a phone that can act as a compass, a level, play music and find the nearest public restroom for me all at the same time? So, now the transformation is complete. I'm now a Mac user. Although, I'm not sure I can qualify myself as Mac "user" quite yet - that would suggest that I actually know how to use my Mac...... WHICH I DON'T. If you need to find me over the next couple of weeks, I'll be over here.

And then there were 60 (technically)...